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eMars

eMars’ Compliant Client system allows contractors to follow the Davis-Bacon Act and other laws while saving time and effort. By Jim Harris, Senior Editor at Knighthouse Media

Contractors have a lot to keep track of during a publically funded project. In addition to managing construction crews and blueprints, builders must comply with federal and state laws dictating how wages are paid and reported.

One of the most prominent of these requirements is the federal Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, which requires contractors to pay the prevailing wage – the hourly wage paid in the largest city in each county to the majority of workers, laborers and mechanics – on federally funded projects. The prevailing wage is determined by the U.S. Department of Labor for each work classification involved in public projects.

For many contractors, complying with the law has historically meant keeping extensive paper records of what the prevailing wage in their county was and what each worker on a job – including certified apprentices – was being paid. Failure to abide by the requirements of the Davis-Bacon and related acts can lead to fines and loss of reputation.

eMars’ Compliant Client system makes following the law painless for contractors. The web-based service ensures that contractors and their subcontractors are following the law at the click of a button.

Compliant Client works in conjunction with existing payroll systems to identify and correct potential violations of the Davis-Bacon and related acts. The program uses a process known as mapping to download information from those programs directly into Compliant Client. Information can also be input manually or copied from prior payrolls.

The program compares payroll information against the wage determination and more than 30 data points based on the Davis-Bacon Act. “We load the county wage determination into the database, so when the payroll comes rolling in, the first question [Compliant Client] can answer is `did we pay the carpenter the proper wage for the work he did in a particular county?,” eMars President and CEO Woody Chamberlain says. “Our system knows what the rules are and how much a person in each position should be paid.”

Compliant Client highlights payroll errors and then informs the user on how the errors can be corrected. The system can also calculate the amount of money that is owed to an employee. “Think of us as being like spellcheck,” he adds. “Once corrections are made and a user hits the ‘validate and submit’ key in the program, the records are sent to the owner, which could be a state, municipal or federal government agency, if they accept electronic records. We can also print certified documents that can be mailed to the owner.”

In addition, the program can link revised payrolls to original submissions, giving companies a permanent audit trail.

Compliant Client is used by prime contractors as well as all subcontractors working on a public project. “The prime contractor has complete visibility into everything its subcontractors are doing. This is important because if a subcontractor commits fraud and the prime contractor has done nothing to correct the program or reviewed what the sub is doing, they can be held liable,” Chamberlain says.

eMars is the only company of its kind that encrypts at-rest payroll database and transaction data including payroll reviews, tracking of certified apprentices and restitution calculation. This helps keep the information secure from cyber threats such as hacking.

Full Support

Compliant Client requires a PC and less than 30 minutes of training. Implementation takes less than one day after loading the wage determination, and a typical payroll is prepared in less than five minutes. The program communicates in real time.

“We don’t rely on sending e-mails back and forth; [Compliant Client] can display immediate problems on the screen that are visible to the prime contractor and subcontractors,” Chamberlain says. “Everyone will know there is a problem before they open a project.”

eMars provides support to all of its users, particularly subcontractors. “We completely support subcontractors with respect to preparing payroll and understanding the law in case they have any questions, so the only thing a prime contractor has to do is look once a week to see who filed on time and who still owes workers money,” Chamberlain says.

Positive Results

None of the more than 17,000-plus Compliant Client users have had a random Department of Labor audit conducted for the past three years.

Current noteworthy applications of the Compliant Client software include it being used to support the largest Davis-Bacon Act-regulated project in the United States. “We have 4,000 employees on one payroll, which we can process in two minutes,” Chamberlain says.

The system was recently used by a contractor who was being audited by the federal government after it was discovered that they were preparing certified payrolls incorrectly for more than a year. Payment on the contract was immediately stopped after the discovery was made.

The client called eMars, who used Compliant Client to reconstitute the previous year of certified payrolls. Within six weeks, all of the mistakes made in the payroll were discovered and corrected and payments to the client resumed.

The system is routinely used by large companies that have several project managers and payroll administrators on their staff to ensure payrolls are correct. “The government allows you 47 minutes to prepare a payroll, which takes a lot of people,” Chamberlain says. “With our system, you can prepare a payroll for a large company in two to three minutes.”

Many of the companies using Compliant Client are able to reassign payroll administrators to other tasks. “People use our system to save time and money,” he adds.

Commercial Applications

Complaint Client can do more than help contractors comply with the Davis-Bacon Act. The system also enables contractors to adhere to industry standards and state laws pertaining to private projects. This is particularly important to contractors based in California, where there are a number of laws in place that Chamberlain notes can be difficult for smaller companies to follow.

Most recently, California in January passed a law that requires that all prime contractors in commercial construction retain detailed payroll records for any and all contractors on a project. “Our system captures that very information and retains records for seven years. No other software does that,” Chamberlain says.

California and the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) also require that contractors submit records in XML format, which eMars’ system is capable of, he adds.

One of eMars’ recent clients used the Compliant Client to ensure that its subcontractors on a privately funded stadium project used workers who had the skill level required in its contract. The program helped compare workers’ actual skill levels with the skill level stated to the prime contractor. “[The prime contractor] was able to ensure that the subs were living up to what they stated in their bids,” Chamberlain says.

Development Experience

The Compliant Client system’s developers have decades of experience dealing with contractor payroll for government agencies.

“Our collaborative effort, based upon extensive knowledge from computer software, computer hardware, government agencies, construction contractors, and pertinent government agencies, led to the formation of eMars and the Compliant Client,” the company says.

Chamberlain helped develop the software and invested in the company early in its development. His previous experience includes leadership positions in software companies during the aerospace and defense sectors.

The company developed its first Beta site in 2006 with the Sundt Corporation, its first client. The Compliant Client system was field tested under a variety of conditions in a live environment.

Sundt works in the transportation, industrial and building markets and is one of the nation’s largest general contractors. The company remains a Compliant Client user.

“We are easily able to present our solutions to very large corporations because of the significant savings associated with it,” Chamberlain says. “These large companies also insist on having their subcontractors use the system during projects, but many of those subcontractors continue to use it on their own after finishing the project.”